The Photo
by Lady-of-the-Refrigerator
Summary: She dreaded facing Tom and forcing herself to act like her mind wasn't miles away, like she was excited to spend the evening snuggled next to him watching a teary-eyed Michael Caine sing about lost love.


Liz and Tom had a tradition. Every year on Christmas Eve, they each picked a single gift—in years past, they always chose one of the gifts they'd bought for each other—and opened them together in front of the tree while drinking hot apple cider, and then settled in to watch Christmas movies until the wee hours. It was a tradition she usually cherished, a carry-over from her childhood, one of the rare few memories with nothing but positive feelings attached. This Christmas Eve found Liz trudging up her front steps at nine in the evening, the unseasonable warmth of the 23rd making the nighttime chill even harder to bear. Still, she took a moment to steel herself before unlocking the door. She dreaded facing Tom and forcing herself to act like her mind wasn't miles away, like she was excited to spend the evening snuggled next to him watching a teary-eyed Michael Caine sing about lost love.

Since school let out for winter break, Tom had made it his mission to be at her side as much as possible, casually dropping hints that he'd been serious about moving and that the new year would be a perfect opportunity to leave the nightmare of Washington, DC behind. His self-professed skills at reading her were failing him, because what she wanted from him was distance, not closeness, and she most certainly didn't want to talk about a move she had no interest in making. She felt herself growing more and more stir-crazy with each passing day, Tom's increasing clinginess and sudden inability to read her cues making her uneasy.

She'd been staying late at the Post Office for just that reason. Red may have planted the seed that something was still up with her husband in her mind, but Tom was doing a fine job making sure those suspicions took root all by himself. She had to get tonight over with just the same. Faking an emergency at work to get out of it, though tempting, would only make things worse in the long run.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside. Tom wasn't in the living room, but she could hear the whirring of the microwave coming from the kitchen.

"Hey."

Tom looked up from the microwave, face brightening when he met her eyes but not quite as much as it used to. "Hey, yourself." He reached for another mug, filled it with cider, and waited for his own to finish heating. "Rough day?"

"Tedious."

"Have you given any thought to—"

"_Tom_."

He held up his hands in surrender. "All right, I know! I promised to leave it 'til after the holidays." He took a sip of his cider to test the temperature and put it back into the microwave. "You got a package today, by the way."

"I did?" She wasn't expecting anything. Trinkets from out-of-town relatives and friends had trickled in over the past couple weeks. She'd been cataloguing return addresses in her boredom, hoping to get a head start on thank you notes, and she was sure everyone was accounted for already. She had a fleeting thought that if Red hadn't gone to ground, he probably would have given her something charming and inappropriate enough to raise eyebrows at work, just because he could.

She froze. What if…?

"Where is it?" she asked, eyes scanning the counter tops as she tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.

"I put it under the tree."

Liz swept out of the kitchen, shedding her scarf and coat as she walked, and dropped to her knees in front of the tree. The colorful festive designs printed on the generic shipping envelope made the gift look ordinary, inconspicuous; the neat red handwriting on the address label, however, took her breath away. She ran her fingers across her name, not quite believing what she was seeing.

From the kitchen, she heard the microwave beep, open, close, and start whirring again. If she waited for Tom to finish up, there'd be no way to explain why she wanted to make this her Christmas Eve gift, and even if she could, she'd have to open it in front of him and mask her reaction to whatever it might be. She'd have to do the same if she waited to open it until morning, and opening it after he went to sleep wasn't an option either, not with how nosy he'd been lately.

Decision made, she took a deep breath and tore at the sealed edge. Tradition could go fuck itself.

She made quick work of the envelope, not caring about making a mess of it, and slid two thin, bubble wrapped squares onto her lap. The first was about the size and heft of a CD—Bing Crosby's _I'll Be Home For Christmas_, she read with a smirk. No use getting her hopes up for that, then, considering the lyrics.

She peeled the wrapping back on the second and her breath caught. A small, intricately carved antique frame held a photo she hadn't seen in years. Sam told her it was the first photo that had been taken of the two of them. In fact, if you looked closely, you could make out the edge of a bandage poking out from her right sleeve; her burn hadn't even healed yet. He used to keep it on his dresser in a plain, wooden frame, next to photos of his mother and father. She and Sam had moved rather abruptly when she was six or seven. She didn't remember specifics, but she did remember that quite a few of their things had been lost in transit, one of which was this photo. After the move, she never thought she'd see it again and yet here it was.

A yellow sticky note attached to the back of the frame read, "To keep the memory alive."

* * *

Tom came into the room carrying two steaming mugs of cider. He frowned when he saw the discarded envelope and bubble wrap, miffed that Liz hadn't even hesitated in opening the mystery gift over one of his own, before he registered the tears in her eyes. He set one of the mugs down her side of the coffee table and stood over her to see what it was. He winced when he saw young Liz and his father-in-law smiling up at him.

"Who's it from?"

Liz tore her attention away from the photo sluggishly. "Huh?"

"Who's it from?" he repeated. "It's a beautiful frame."

"Someone from work," she said, dismissively. "He's been really understanding and supportive ever since…"

"Ah. Not that guy with the," he made a swooping motion above his forehead with his hand, "haircut?"

"What? Oh." She shook her head. "No, not him."

Tom waited for her to elaborate, but she just went back to staring at the photo.

"Where'd he get the photo? Have I seen it before?"

"Oh, I, um… I keep it on my desk—he must have snuck a copy when I wasn't looking."

Tom frowned again, wondering about this colleague who had unwittingly stolen Liz's attention away from him on Christmas Eve. "That was very thoughtful of your friend," he said, not quite able to keep himself from putting an awkward, strange emphasis on the last word, but she didn't seem to notice.

She smiled a small, wistful smile. "Yeah."


End file.
